A TRYING TRIP ALONE THROUGH THE WILDERNESS, Page #0087

and my tongue went down. When
I got enough water then I was hungry. I could have eaten a piece of that fat dog
if I'd had it.

My friend's name was Jack Woods, an old cowboy that worked on the Bosler ranch.
Jack and I had been up the trail from Ogallala to the Dakotas many times before
that.

Jack said, "Now, Sam, we will go up to the house and get something to eat. I
killed a fat heifer calf yesterday and have plenty of bread cooked, so you come
in and lay down and I will start a fire quickly and cook some steak and we will
eat some supper." Before he could get it cooked, I could stand it no longer, so
I slipped out, went around behind the house where he had the calf hanging, took
out my pocket knife and went to work eating the raw meat, trying to satisfy my
appetite. After fifteen or twenty minutes Jack came around hunting me and said,
"Sam, I always thought you were crazy, now I know it. Come on to supper." I went
in the house and ate a hearty supper.

After finishing supper, I never was so sleepy in my life. Jack said, "Sam, lay
down on my bed and go to sleep and I will go out and get your horse and treat
him to water and oats." He got on his horse and struck a gallop for the sand
hills, where my poor old horse was standing starving to death.

Next morning Jack told me that a man by the name of Lumm once undertook to cross
those plains from the Niobrara River to the head of the Little Blue over that
same Indian trail. Jack said, "He and his horse's bones are laying out on the
plains now. Perhaps you saw them as you came along." I told him I saw the bones
of a man and the horse, but didn't remember how far back it was. It seemed about
25 miles.

I remained there five days and every morning while I was there, Jack and I would
get on our horses and go out in the valley and round up the horses he was
taking